Some truths there are so near and obvious to the mind that a man need only open his eyes to see them. Such I take this important one to be, viz. that all the choir of heaven and furniture of the earth, in a word all those bodies which compose the mighty frame of the world, have not any subsistence without a mindöthat their being is to be perceived or known.

-Berkeley, George
  A  Treatise Concerning The Principles Of Human Knowledge, pt.1, section 6.

Men multiply like Mice in a barn if they have unlimited Means of Subsistence.

-Cantillon, Richard
^4  Essay on the Nature of  Trade.

Population, when unchecked, increases in geometrical ratio. Subsistence only increases in arithmetical ratio.

-Malthus,Thomas Robert
  An Essay on the Principle of Population.

The bourgeoisie's weapon is starvation. If as a writer or artist you run counter to their narrow notions they simplyand silently withdraw your means of subsistence. I sometimes wonder how many people of talent are executed in this way every year.

-Stevenson, Robert Louis
Quoted by Lloyd Osbourne in'The Death of Stevenson', preface toTusitala edition of Weir of Hermiston (published1924).